


Atlas

by silverhuntress101



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Bucky Barnes & Steve Rogers Friendship, F/M, Gen, M/M, One-Sided Attraction, Past Bucky Barnes and Steve Rogers, Post-Serum Steve Rogers, Pre-Serum Steve Rogers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-15
Updated: 2020-10-15
Packaged: 2021-03-08 22:27:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,397
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27034162
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/silverhuntress101/pseuds/silverhuntress101
Summary: Bucky and Steve. A little look through Bucky's eyes before and after Steve got the serum. How some things never change and some changes he has to live with.
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes & Steve Rogers, Peggy Carter/Steve Rogers
Comments: 5
Kudos: 6





	Atlas

**Author's Note:**

> Hello beautiful people,
> 
> Honestly, this just randomly came to my mind while I was procrastinating. These two and their love for each other has always been so special in my mind. Do people love each other so selflessly? Perhaps not. Hence this. 
> 
> Hopefully, you all love it!

He looked so small, the white shirt hung past his knobby knees, his fists were raised in defiance, his blue eyes were burning with spitfire rage. He didn’t know whether to laugh or be impressed. The bully made the decision for him, he landed a blow at the side of his face and the boy crumpled. His legs carried him to the fight, pulling the bully off the boy.

The bully took one look at him and ran, intimidated by his size. He gave a hand to the boy. Up close his blue eyes looked huge in his gaunt face. His eyes were wary but he let himself be pulled up.

“So, do you just like fighting boys who are infinitely bigger than you?”

The boy juts his chin out.

“He was picking on a little girl, being a total asshole. Stole her candy. I had to step up.” His Brooklyn accent was thick and it made him even more endearing.

“I do see the urge, so you are just an upstanding citizen, huh?” The boy’s eyes flashed in anger and he bent down to pick his bag.

“You don’t have to mock me.”

“Hey, hey, I am not. I think that was admirable. But maybe next time be smarter?”

“Smarter?” The boy echoed.

“Yes, like how today we fought together. I had your back.”  
The boy raises an eyebrow and he couldn’t help but grin at him. This tiny brat was so amusing.

“You want to have my back?”

“Of course. Didn’t I today? What’s that in your hand?”

The boy looked down and became shy all of a sudden. His ears turned red.

“It’s nothing. I, uh, draw sometimes.”

“Really? Come on, I know a place, you can show me all you drew then.”

He started walking then and the boy hurried to catch up.

“You never told me your name.”

“James Buchanan Barnes. But call me Bucky. And you, little punk?”

“I am not a punk.” He grumbled.

“Uh huh, tell me your name.”

The boy sighed like he was preparing for a fight.

“Steve. Steve Rogers.”

He was small, Bucky thinks. Right now he almost can’t recognize him. For one, he was taller than Bucky. How in the world did that happen? His shoulders were massive, his eyes no longer looked too big for his face. He was lifting motorcycles with girls on them! For the first time in his life he was the one who felt small. This super soldier serum completely transformed his best friend. People were swarming over him, grateful for saving their lives. Bucky was too. Being stuck on that gurney with Arnim Zola lurking over him was keeping him awake at night. He looks at his arm and feels the ghost of a needle prick. But no mark was there. He shivers once. Steve detaches himself from the many admirers and comes to sit beside him. Their shoulders touch.

“How you feeling?” Steve asks. Bucky leans into the warmth of his shoulder.

“I am okay. So how are you feeling? Any trouble breathing?”

Steve grins then.

“I feel amazing. It doesn’t hurt to breathe anymore. I am not dying anymore.” Steve laughs but Bucky flinches. He remembers the endless cold that used to shake Steve’s tiny frame, the harsh coughing, the fear that suddenly Steve would just stop breathing. He was grateful to the serum and Dr.Erksine for saving his friend. Maybe now Steve can fight and he would actually win. Bucky wouldn’t have to sit around and worry constantly about how some fool would actually recruit him. He remembers seeing Steve lying on enlistment forms, applying all over the place, and he remembers praying that he would get rejected. And when he was, he hated to see that forlorn look on his face but he also couldn’t help but feel relieved. And when Bucky was recruited he didn’t tell Steve for a while and when Steve finally found out he was scared that he was going to be angry. Instead Steve hugged him. So now Bucky doesn’t have to fear for him anymore. He was practically indestructible. He looks at Steve’s face and sees the eagerness of the fight in his eyes and realizes that he will never stop worrying about him.

His fear came to light pretty soon afterwards. They were on a raid when Steve hurt his leg pretty bad. A clean break through the femur. Dragging him back to camp was grueling, he was so much heavier. His leg was half healed by the time they stretched him out on the bed. The doctor injected the pain medications but minutes ticked by and Steve was still in pain. After a few **minutes,** Steve laughed.

“Don’t think they work.” Bucky felt the breath leaving his chest in a whoosh. They held him down while the doctor reset the leg and then actually positioned it the correct way so it can heal right. All the while Steve held his screams, his blue eyes clenched shut in pain. Bucky felt rage but Steve whispered a soft ‘It’s okay, buck’ and his anger melted to helplessness.

He is sitting outside now, hears Steve scream from the tent. He hurt his shoulder today, a pole went through his left side and Bucky couldn’t do it today. He just left. The serum gave him a lot but it didn’t make him indestructible. Not really. He might look different, might fight like a hero, but he was still a little boy from Brooklyn with his heart on his sleeve. No one except for him could see that. And he hated everyone who tried to claim Steve as if they knew him. Even the Howling Commandos believed Steve’s lies and overconfidence.

Peggy Carter is suddenly in front of him. He raises his head to greet her but stops. She looks like how he feels.

“Do you wish sometimes that he wasn’t chosen for this?” She asks him. The question shocks him because he almost felt guilty thinking it sometimes. Steve is helping them win the war, his strength and reflexes saved so many lives, how selfish was it for him to wish for Steve to be safe? Well, as safe as he could have been with his illness. But still, maybe he could be drawing for newspapers instead of screaming in pain every week. But he knows Steve would never have been happy. He always wanted this. Bucky knew this but was surprised that Peggy Carter knew it too. He thought she fancied Steve only after he got the serum, after his changed looks. Would she have seen him before? Bucky wants to believe she wouldn’t but he knows she did. She cared, even back then, she actually saw Steve for all his worth. And Steve saw her too; his blue eyes sometimes gaze at her whenever she walks by. Bucky hates that. Hates that Steve doesn’t need him now, doesn’t need him saving his ass, he hates the serum for that too. Hates that Peggy was pure and good, was not tainted like Bucky. Hates the easy way they talk, the seemingly harmless conversations they have which makes his heart hurt. He doesn’t like feeling that way, the irrational anger at Steve because this was his fault. His darkness. But she understands Steve and that’s all that mattered in the end. Bucky would suffer if that meant Steve was happy. God knows he deserved it.

“Yeah.” He responds to her question. Her dark eyes look into his pale blue ones.

“You will watch his back, right, Sergeant?”

“Of course.” End of the line.

He goes into the tent after everything is done and swats Steve on the head.

“How you feeling, Stevie?”

Steve opens his eyes and smiles. Bucky’s heart thumps.

“Shoulder will be good as new in the morning. How are you?”  
Bucky rolls his eyes. “Stop worrying about me. Do you need anything?”  
“Can you stay?” Steve’s eyes droop sleepily. Bucky pulls the chair close to the bed.

“Yeah, pal. I can. Go to sleep.”

Steve yawns and closes his eyes.

“Don’t leave.” He mumbles.

Yeah, Bucky will suffer every time he saw them together, but this? What he had? It was worth all the ache. He brushes his fingers through his blonde hair, wipes the sweat off his temple. Steve. His Steve.

Leaving was never an option. 


End file.
